"I think in the earliest days of the abortion debate in the United
States, if people had to guess which party would’ve embraced abortion
and which one wouldn’t have, people would’ve thought the Republicans
would’ve easily embraced that and the Democrats never would."
"Many of the Democrats have [taken] Democrat Catholic votes for granted
because they’ll go with them no matter what the Party position might be
on abortion. That’s why the position of the Democrat Party has gotten
worse, and worse, and worse as time goes on because Catholics haven’t
abandoned them as they’ve moved in that direction. So we just have to be
insistent on that Catholic identity takes precedence over everything.”
"...God has a demand on us prior to any government demand on us and this has been the story of the martyrs through the centuries..."
ReplyDeleteThis man is truly a light for our world and he is not hiding it under a bushel basket. Thanks for sharing this Father John!
"You can't let any party take your vote for granted."
ReplyDeleteSo true: http://youtu.be/jXQL9WLKXMo
If I may respectfully disagree with Archbishop Chaput, it's not that Catholics haven't left the D party enough, for many of us left in droves, some to be apolitical or independent, others to be R's. GW Bush was called the second Catholic president not because he was one, but because the White House staff and cabinet was crawling with them. If this last D convention was a sign of anything, they would be happy to see every non-secular believer leave the party and not let the door hit his butt on the way out, and good riddance. Jimmy Carter's devout Baptist witness seen in 1976 would not be allowed in today's party.
ReplyDeleteIf Catholics need to do anything, it is to be much more engaged in the D party than ever before to change it. The R's were the social issue liberal party through the 70's, but the evangelicals flooded it in the 80's. At first Reagan & co. took the votes and did nothing in return, but that got evangelicals to double down to where things are today where R's in the statehouse are ready to defend traditional marriage and pro-life, and a pro-choice pro-gay agenda R is told to hit the door and go with the D's if he wants to run for anything.
After the rallies end, if every attendee agreed to get active in his/her precinct organization in the party of his/her choice, we can get bi-partisan support, and with this, less divisive politics.